The Great Worldwide Star Count

On October 22nd at 10:00 p.m, I went into my backyard and participated in the Great Worldwide Star Count. Where I viewed Cygnus from was about 60 yards from the nearest street light and the constellation was still high enough above the trees to see. My latitude was 42.33049, longitude -82.887559. Based on the maps online at http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount , I determined the light pollution estimate to be Magnitude 4.
Last year for the Great Worldwide Star Count, 2427 worldwide observations were submitted from 31 different countries.
I feel that this annual event is a good estimate of where the world is at in terms of light pollution, and shows us how much of the night sky we miss out on because of it. However, I'm not really sure about what the results will do, because light pollution in today's world is hard to fight.

The Future of Earth

Let's face it, one day the human race is going to come to an end.  There are many theories as to how the end will come, but I think that human's life on Earth will come to an end due to Earth's inability to sustain the population.  Every year the population is becoming much greater, and the resources and space is being used up rapidly.  One day, I feel that the Earth will simply fail to foster humans' continuously expanding wants and needs.  

In order to extend the amount of time that will make Earth optimally habitable for humans, the global society needs to be as efficient as possible.  As the population is increasing, we need to work on finding new ways to satisfy desires, and treating natural resources as a scarcity, not something disposable.  

Adventures with Galileoscopes

While one day messing around with my Galileoscope, I was observing a traffic cone down the street from me.  While attempting to view the cone, I discovered that through my low and high power lenses the image was upside down, and that the low power view gave me the largest field of view.  The medium lens, however, offered an erect image.
On October 8th at about 9 p.m, I went over to the soccer field at North where I had a good view of the moon.  Using the low power lens, I was able to spot some key characteristics of the moon's surface.  The large dark spots, called maria, and the bright streaks that radiate outward from craters, called rays, are the easiest to identify.
When I first brought out the Galileoscope to test the different lenses, I had some difficulties.  Getting something into view while everything is upside down is frustrating.  Also, it was difficult to see through the lens while using the high power configuration.  I was, however, excited to use the telescope and observe the moon once I figured out how to use it.
When Galileo first viewed the moon, he probably had a mix of excitement, relief, and a certain confusedness.  He likely didn't know what he was observing on the surface of the moon, and could only speculate.  After all the work that he must've put into it, finally being able to have an enlarged view through his telescope must've brought great joy.  Galileo accomplished true greatness.